The invention relates a.o. to a method of manufacturing a mould and providing the mould with a backing, which mould after at least one further multiplication step serves for manufacturing disc-shaped information carriers. Further the mould is derived from a parent information carrier in an electroforming process in which an information structure formed in the parent information carrier is transferred to the mould, after which electroforming process and prior to its separation from the parent information carrier the mould is provided at its back with a backing which serves for mechanical reinforcement.
FR-PS 10 12 660 describes a method enabling thin metallic objects to be mechanically reinforced with a backing. These objects may be, for example, positive or negative moulds required in the fabrication of audio discs in the multiplication steps from the master to the finished plastics disc record. If, for example, an electroformed copy is to be derived from a negative mould the information side of the negative is first provided with a copper layer in an electroforming process. For reinforcement purposes the copper layer is subsequently provided with a heat-curable synthetic resin coating in accordance with FR-PS 10 12 660. The coating is subsequently covered with a thermoplastic material. This method consequently involves the deposition of a plurality of layers, which is a disadvantage for the production process. Moreover, heat-curable synthetic resins cannot be cured in a stable manner. This is because right from the beginning of the curing process a thin surface layer has already essentially cured. The underlying layers then cannot cure correctly and irregularities are formed, which may disturb the copper layer during subsequent multiplication processes. Moreover, such a synthetic resin coating does not have an adequate mechanical stability.